Antebellum Reformers

Antebellum

Revivalism

&

Reform

―The Pursuit of Perfection‖

In Antebellum America

Overview• Religious revivalism and social and

economic changes lead to reform movements.

• Most reformers eventually enter political arena.

• Greater political organization and participation energizes reform movements.

• As nation expands westward, part of the competition for reform is over the west.

The Second GreatAwakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”[Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

Temperance

Asylum &Penal Reform

Education

Women’s Rights

Abolitionism

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

The Rise of Popular Religion

“The Benevolent Empire”:

1825 - 1846

• Rejection of Calvinism- No predestination

• People are responsible for their own souls-not the clergy. No need for ―judgment‖ by ministers. Do not need to wait to be led.

• Religion pushed into the vernacular (the language of the people)- preaching styles, music, etc., more like the common man.

• Personal discipline: sobriety, piety, hard work

The Second GreatAwakening

Points of Emphasis

• A ―benevolent empire‖- Voluntary organizations spread across the nation.

– American Bible Society- distribute inexpensive Bibles across the nation.

– American Sunday School Union- create an opportunity for Christian education that did not depend on clergy. Often taught basic education as well- reading and writing.

– Christian Temperance Union- teach sobriety.

– American Colonization Society + American Anti-Slavery Society- end slavery

The Second GreatAwakening

The ―Burned-Over‖ Districtin Upstate New York

Second Great Awakening

Revival Meeting

The ranges of tents, the fires, reflecting light…; the candles and lamps illuminating the encampment; hundreds moving to and fro…;the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… like the sound of many waters, was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation.

Charles G. Finney

(1792 – 1895)

“soul-shaking” conversion

MillennialismThe End is Near…

William Miller

Seventh-Day Adventists• William Miller predicted the ―second coming‖ sometime

between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.

• A calculation based upon prophesies in the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation.

• Large numbers of people drawn into the prediction-Called ―Millerites‖ by some.

• When the prediction failed to come true, became known as the ―Great Disappointment.‖

• Millerites become 7th Day Adventists, eventually growing to many thousands of members.– Moved from New England to Battle Creek, MI

– W.K. Kellogg in response to beliefs about keeping one’s body pure develops his cereal empire.

The Mormons(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

Joseph Smith(1805-1844)

• 1823 - GoldenTablets

• 1830 - Book of Mormon

• 1844 - Murdered inCarthage, IL

Violence Against Mormons

The Mormon “Trek”

The Mormons(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

• Desert community.

• Salt Lake City, Utah

Brigham Young(1801-1877)

Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784)

• If you will take up your crosses against the works of generations, and follow Christ in theregeneration, God will cleanse you from allunrighteousness.

• Remember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries.

• If you improve in one talent, God will give you more.

The Shakersa.k.a- United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming

Shaker Meeting

Shaker Hymn

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free,'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,And when we find ourselves in the place just right,'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gainedTo bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,To turn, turn will be our delight,'Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Shaker Simplicity & Utility

Transcendentalism(European Romanticism)

• “Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe.

Transcendentalist Intellectuals/WritersConcord, MA

Ralph WaldoEmerson

Henry DavidThoreau

Nature(1832)

Walden(1854)

Resistance to Civil Disobedience

(1849)

Self-Reliance(1841)

“The American Scholar” (1837)

Transcendentalism• Romanticism/transcendentalism refers to a

set of loosely connected attitudes toward nature and humankind.

– NOT romantic ―love‖

• The movement known as romanticism sprang up in both Europe and America as a reaction to everything that had come before it:

– The rationalism of the 18th Century Age of Reason.

– The strict doctrines of Puritanism.

– The early industrial revolution.

Transcendentalism• Romantic artists, philosophers, and writers

saw the limitations of reason and celebrated instead the glories of the individual spirit, the emotions, and the imagination as basic elements of human nature.

• The splendors of nature inspired the romantics with more than the fear of God, and some of them felt a fascination with the supernatural.

• Romantic works exhibited a preoccupation with atmosphere, sentiment, and optimism.

TranscendentalismKey Ideals

• There is an essential unity of all creation.

• There is a deep continuity between nature and humans.

• Nature is an emblem of spiritual reality, through which one can gain access to transcendent truth.

• Nature thus has deep religious/spiritual meaning, but ultimately it is that which transcends nature that has the deepest spiritual value.

Transcendentalism• Because of the continuity of nature and

the spirit, to understand spiritual truths, one needs to develop sensitivity to and communion with nature.

• Time spent in contemplation of nature and its beauty is an essential part of the religious/spiritual process.

Walden

Original Fireplace Site

View from the cabin to Walden Pond

• Their pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of humannature and possibilities:

* The Blithedale Romance

A Transcendentalist Critic:Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

• One should accept the world as an imperfect place:

* Scarlet Letter* House of the SevenGables

Utopian Communities

The Oneida CommunityNew York, 1848

John Humphrey Noyes(1811-1886)

• Millenarianism --> the 2nd

coming of Christ hadalready occurred.

• Humans were no longer

obliged to follow the moralrules of the past.

•all residents “married”to each other.

•regulated “free love.”

Secular Utopian Communities

IndividualFreedom

Demands ofCommunity Life

• spontaneity

• self-fulfillment

• discipline

• organizationalhierarchy

CONFLICT

Brook FarmWest Roxbury, MA

George Ripley (1802-1880)

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

Utopian Socialist

“Village of Cooperation”

Original Plans for New Harmony, IN

New Harmony in 1832

New Harmony, IN

Penitentiary Reform

Dorothea Dix(1802-1887)

1821 - first penitentiary foundedin Auburn, NY

Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849

Temperance Movement

Frances WillardThe Beecher Family

1826 - American Temperance Society“Demon Rum”!

―The Drunkard’s Progress‖

From the first glass to the grave, 1846

Temperance• American society for the Promotion of

Temperance (1826) lobbied for individual abstinence and state prohibition laws.

• Per capita alcohol consumption dropped sharply.

• Some motivation for temperance- anti-immigrant bias.– Common stereotype was that immigrants

drank more than other Americans.

Annual Consumption of Alcohol

Social Reform ProstitutionThe ―Fallen Woman‖

Sarah Ingraham(1802-1887)

• 1835 Advocate of Moral Reform

• Female Moral Reform Society focusedon the “Johns” & pimps, not the girls.

Educational Reform

Religious Training Secular Education

• MA always on the forefront of public

educational reform* 1st state to establish tax support for

local public schools.

• By 1860 every state offered free public

education to whites.* US had one of the highest literacy rates.

“Father of American Education”

Horace Mann (1796-1859)

• children were clay in the hands

of teachers and school officials

• children should be “molded”

into a state of perfection

• discouraged corporal punishment

• established state teacher-

training programs

The McGuffey Eclectic Readers

• Used religious parables to teach “American values.”

• Teach middle class morality and respect for order.

• Teach “3 Rs” + “Protestant ethic” (frugality,

hard work, sobriety)

Women Educators

• Troy, NY Female Seminary• curriculum: math, physics, history, geography.

• train female teachers

Emma Willard(1787-1870)

Mary Lyons(1797-1849)

• 1837 - she establishedMt. Holyoke [So. Hadley, MA] as the first college for women.

Women and Reform• Women became active in reform- a new

public path

• Often differed in their perspectives from male reformers– For example:

• While men typically blamed prostitutes, female reformers advocated punishing male patrons and helping prostitutes find decent jobs.

• Temperance groups formed by male evangelicals (alcohol a sin) and female reformers (alcohol a threat to families) highlight these differences.

―Separate Spheres‖ Concept

“Cult of Domesticity”• A woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a

refuge from the cruel world outside).• Her role was to “civilize” her husband and

family.

• An 1830s MA minister:

The power of woman is her dependence. A woman who gives up that dependence on man to become a reformer yields the power God has given her for her protection, and her character becomes unnatural!

Early 19c Women1. Unable to vote.2. Legal status of a minor.3. Single - could own her own

property.4. Married - no control over her

property or her children.5. Could not initiate divorce.6. Couldn’t make wills, sign a contract,

or bring suit in court without her husband’s permission.

What It Would Be Like If

Ladies Had Their Own Way!

Cult of Domesticity = Slavery

The 2nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.

Angelina Grimké Sarah Grimké

• Southern Abolitionists

Lucy Stone

• American Women’sSuffrage Assoc.

• edited Woman’s Journal

Women’s Rights1840 - split in the abolitionist movement

over women’s role in it.

London - World Anti-Slavery Convention

Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1848 - Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

Seneca Falls Declaration

The Abolitionist Movement

William Lloyd Garrison

Abolitionist Movement• 1816 American Colonization Society

created (gradual, voluntaryemancipation.

British Colonization Society symbol

Forces Against Slavery• Quakers- stressed brotherhood of all; their

values inconsistent with slavery.

• Age of Reason- as rationality replaces revelation, traditional justifications for slavery no longer so valid

• Great Awakening- all could be saved

• The Revolution- British actions likened to enslavement; Declaration; fear that British would use freed blacks.

• Romanticism/Transcendentalism-emphasis on individuality and ethics.

Forces Against Abolitionism• Southern economic dependence on the

institution and economic interdependence of sections.

• Social role of slavery in South

• American political philosophy of independent states

• White supremacy

• Politicians- issues split parties, so avoided

• Apathy- a remote issue to most Americans

Abolitionist Movement

• Religion crucial to the movement throughout.

• Begins with Quakers- but not a powerful movement because of religious prohibition on political activity.

• 2nd Great Awakening contributed-– Selfishness is what sin is; slavery is

ultimate form of selfishness; therefore slavery is ultimate sin.

Abolitionist Movement• 1833- American Anti-Slavery Society.

Provided assistance- financial and other- to those who sought political reform, and to some underground activities. Religion integral to their activities. By late 30’s most Northern states had a branch of this society or some other.

Abolitionist Movement• 1830’s- The Liberator, William Lloyd

Garrison

– Uncompromising

– Moral persuasion by force of argument

– Immediate emancipation

Premiere issue January 1, 1831

William Lloyd Garrison (1801-1879)

• Slavery & Masonryundermined republicanvalues.

• Immediate emancipation with NO compensation.

• Slavery was a moral, notan economic issue.

Other White Abolitionists

Lewis Tappan

Arthur Tappan

James Birney

• Liberty Party.• Ran for President in

1840 & 1844.

Black Abolitionists

David Walker(1785-1830)

1829 - Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

Fight for freedom rather than wait to be set free by whites.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

1845 - The Narrative of the LifeOf Frederick Douglass

1847 - “The North Star”

Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)or Isabella Baumfree

1850 - The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Harriet Tubman(1820-1913)

• Helped over 300 slaves to freedom.

• $40,000 bounty on her head.

• Served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

Leading Escaping Slaves Along

the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

Abolitionist Movement• 30’s-40’s- First ―Mass Media Campaign‖

– Mass meetings and rallies; speakers fan out across the country; former slaves used as speakers and ―exhibits‖.

– Mailings

– Petitions to Congress

– Children’s lit., songbooks, adult lit., pamphlets, newspapers

– Organized a political party- The Liberty Party

Abolitionist Songs

Abolitionist Map

Anti-Slavery Alphabet

The Tree of Slavery—Loaded with the Sum of All Villainies!

Major issues for Abolitionists• Equality?

• Women in the movement.

• Emancipation: immediate or gradual?

• Politics

• Violence

• Colonization- ―polite anti-slavery‖

• Slavery and slave trade in D.C.

• Internal slave trade in U.S.

• Expansion of slavery into the territories

* Abolitionists divided over some of these issues. Churches even fell apart.

The Southern reaction• At first, little reaction. Some abolitionism even

politely accepted among Southerners

• Gradually, politeness gave way to anger and violence- and South became its own worst enemy.

– gag rule and violence in Congress

– disruption of mails in South to stop Abolitionist literature

– prices on the heads of Abolitionists

– demands for more rigorous fugitive slave law enforcement

– threats of secession

Reaction to the reaction• Many Northerners saw in the South's

behavior a threat to (white) civil liberties in America. The First Amendment and other freedoms seemed in peril. This brought sympathy by more Notherners for the movement. The result of this fear was increasing antagonism between the North and South, and, as a result, even greater paranoia by Southern politicians. A downward spiral was underway.

The End• By the 1850’s the movement had done

about all it could. The political party had sputtered (only 0.3% of the vote in 1840 presidential race). The movement attracted few new recruits. It had made all of its arguments. But it had put slavery front and center on the national agenda, and had attracted sympathy from previously unsympathetic quarters. Their battle for the American ―soul‖ had been important and worthwhile.